A variety of structures are provided for storage, entertainment, food service, rest and crew and passenger comfort within the fuselage of a typical commercial passenger carrying aircraft. These structures or “monuments” are constructed of honeycomb cored sandwich or composite panel manufactured from fiberglass skins and a Nomex or Kevlar paper core, or aluminum in most modern aircraft.
In order to provide a means of attaching such items as components, service sub-assemblies or secondary modules to the monument, fixing points are bonded into the structural panel at specific locations as required, these fixing points are commonly known as “inserts”. Inserts have heretofore been bonded in sandwich or composite panels by creating wide cavities in the core using hand tools and filling such cavities with adhesive material, which upon curing forms a bond between the insert and the surrounding core and skins. Such cavities are larger in diameter than the diameter of the insert and spread the load over a wider area to provide a greater load carrying capacity than the panel would otherwise be capable of.
An improved insert configuration and attachment method is desirable in order to eliminate the need for large bonding cavities in the panel core, to improve load distribution in the sandwich or composite panel, to reduce the adhesive requirement, to eliminate potential cold bridges, to provide a cleaner process and to significantly reduce manufacturing process times for the installation of the insert.